Re:Prosecutors' deal for Swartz: Felony plea and three month...
by rayiner on Monday February 25, 2013 @09:25PM
(#5283484)
> The law does not 'view' things, the law is made by people and interpreted by people, ordinary Americans should - and plenty of the them do - view these things as strange and inscrutable.
People find taxes strange and inscrutable. They find municipal regulations and housing codes strange and inscrutable. In my experience, they're pretty good with the various provisions of the law that provide for private property and enforced boundaries for private property. We're a society that believes very deeply in boundaries and walls, and are skeptical of people who breach those boundaries even when they have a political agenda that ostensibly justifies their actions.
> They don't understand why high profile banker criminals walk free but some kid that tries to do the world a service gets hounded to the point where he sees no way out.
It's just an opinion that Swartz broke clearly stated laws against illegally accessing networks, but it's a fact that bankers broke criminal laws. I have that straight?
> I'm pretty sure that you as a kid already were a 'good boy' but there is more to this life than obedience, sometimes you have to think for yourself and figure out what is really right or really wrong.
Sometimes you do, but when you do, you should be prepared to deal with the consequences of rocking the boat.
> Making things 'expensive and difficult to upset' is not a hallmark of civilization, it's a hallmark of a system that has gone wrong.
Civilization comes from stability. There is a reason Rome is remembered more for the Pax Romana under the empire than for the republic. There is a reason the peak of British civilization and the peak of American civilization are coincident with periods of their military supremacy.
> Of course to lawyers that's a great thing, it means more gravy for them.
Some lawyers? Sure. Lawyers generally? Not really. The set of people who can afford million dollar legal fees and the set of people are targeted for individual criminal actions is a small group of people. It's profitable work for a few high profile firms, but there just isn't a lot of it and it doesn't account for all that much revenue. By and large the targets of overzealous prosecution are low-income minorities who are put away for drug crimes. Not much money to be made there.
As a result, you'll find very few groups of people more against overzealous criminal prosecution than lawyers. I have too many public defender friends to be unaware of the problems of over-prosecution. But wealthy tech entrepreneurs breaking the law to push their political agenda just doesn't tug at my heart strings the way say a young man actually getting 20+ years for some drug possession does. People like that have the resources to push for change they desire through "official channels" without resorting to dramatics.
More generally, stability is good for lawyers for the same reason it's good for everyone else. Legal industry revenues are a function of GDP, weighted towards GDP from financial services. In a stable environment, people invest in the future. They do deals, some of those deals are a success and result in successful companies, some of those deals go sideways. All of those things generate legal work.
People find taxes strange and inscrutable. They find municipal regulations and housing codes strange and inscrutable. In my experience, they're pretty good with the various provisions of the law that provide for private property and enforced boundaries for private property. We're a society that believes very deeply in boundaries and walls, and are skeptical of people who breach those boundaries even when they have a political agenda that ostensibly justifies their actions.
> They don't understand why high profile banker criminals walk free but some kid that tries to do the world a service gets hounded to the point where he sees no way out.
It's just an opinion that Swartz broke clearly stated laws against illegally accessing networks, but it's a fact that bankers broke criminal laws. I have that straight?
> I'm pretty sure that you as a kid already were a 'good boy' but there is more to this life than obedience, sometimes you have to think for yourself and figure out what is really right or really wrong.
Sometimes you do, but when you do, you should be prepared to deal with the consequences of rocking the boat.
> Making things 'expensive and difficult to upset' is not a hallmark of civilization, it's a hallmark of a system that has gone wrong.
Civilization comes from stability. There is a reason Rome is remembered more for the Pax Romana under the empire than for the republic. There is a reason the peak of British civilization and the peak of American civilization are coincident with periods of their military supremacy.
> Of course to lawyers that's a great thing, it means more gravy for them.
Some lawyers? Sure. Lawyers generally? Not really. The set of people who can afford million dollar legal fees and the set of people are targeted for individual criminal actions is a small group of people. It's profitable work for a few high profile firms, but there just isn't a lot of it and it doesn't account for all that much revenue. By and large the targets of overzealous prosecution are low-income minorities who are put away for drug crimes. Not much money to be made there.
As a result, you'll find very few groups of people more against overzealous criminal prosecution than lawyers. I have too many public defender friends to be unaware of the problems of over-prosecution. But wealthy tech entrepreneurs breaking the law to push their political agenda just doesn't tug at my heart strings the way say a young man actually getting 20+ years for some drug possession does. People like that have the resources to push for change they desire through "official channels" without resorting to dramatics.
More generally, stability is good for lawyers for the same reason it's good for everyone else. Legal industry revenues are a function of GDP, weighted towards GDP from financial services. In a stable environment, people invest in the future. They do deals, some of those deals are a success and result in successful companies, some of those deals go sideways. All of those things generate legal work.